Need Some Help?

Nutritional value of frozen grains and legumes

Hi Sassy! I love love your website!! I was wondering - do grains maintain their nutritional value after being frozen?

I am really enjoying brown rice and quinoa into my exploration of vegetarianism and find that quinoa just takes too long to prepare in the morning, not to mention brown rice cooking times too!

So I thought of making a batch of my tasty quinoa and brown rice mix each Sunday and package it up into individual freezer portions. I am just worried though that the freezing depletes some of the excellent nutrition from the brown rice and quinoa? Or am i worrying for nothing?

Also how do Legume hold up with short term freezing too?

Yay thanks!Adriana :-)Sydney, Australia

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Sassy Sez: Hi Adriana! I love when I am asked questions that stump me! And this is certainly one that does. While I have frozen cooked whole grains and beans/legumes for years, I never stopped to wonder if any of the nutritional properties are lost during the process.

My intuition tells me there might be SOME loss of SOME nutrient SOMEwhere along the way. But if faced with the decision to eat pre-cooked-then-frozen-and-defrosted whole grains and beans, or to skip them altogether because you are too busy to make them, then I would certainly make them ahead of time.

I checked all over the Whole Grains Council website and saw not one mention of whether or not freezing pre-cooked grains was a smart move. So if THEY don't mention it, I think we're okay. ;)

By the way, I love that you freeze and package into individual portions. This makes it easy to pull them out to use on an as-needed basis. Jeff and I use a vacuum sealer to store our food for the freezer (and also for sealing up dried beans and grains before cooking for long-term storage).

I have a Aroma rice cooker that has a delayed timer on it so I can set it before bed and wake up to the smell smell of fresh cooked rice or quinoa.

Rating

Fresh-cooked grains - yum!by: Sassy

Sounds delicious, Debbie. I love the smell of fresh-cooked grains in the morning. :) xo!

Rating

Freeze SOAKED beansby: Christina

Actually I have great success with soaking beans for 8 hours then freezing them. They cook VERY fast and the process is cut in half (imo). Just whipped up an aduki and g-bean hummus in no time! Delish!